Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers on Tuesday it will likely take more than a year to replenish stockpiles of munitions such as Javelin missiles that have been sent to Ukraine to aid in its fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Wormuth told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee the eventual timelines for restocking critical munitions stockpiles will likely differ among systems, as manufacturers work to ramp up production lines in varying states of readiness.
“Whether they can come inside of a one-year period, I am not sure. I think it may take a little more time. But we are trying to work aggressively with industry in both cases,” Wormuth said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, during a SAC-D hearing last week, told the panel the new Ukraine aid supplemental funding request could assist in restocking large portions of that equipment within the year (Defense Daily, May 3).
“It doesn’t look like to me, looking at that a little further, that’s likely to be possible. I think the Javelins are probably closer to 18 to 24 months. And the Stinger missiles, we haven’t bought a Stinger missile, according to the CEO of Raytheon [Technologies], for 18 years,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said during Tuesday’s hearing.
Last Friday, the Pentagon announced it has shifted $1.5 billion to help ramp up production lines and replenish stockpiles of Javelin and Stinger missiles, pulling the funds from the $3.5 billion Ukraine Replacement Transfer Fund appropriated in the $13.6 billion supplemental spending bill for emergency aid to Ukraine passed in mid-March (Defense Daily, May 6).
Following the move, the Pentagon said Friday evening the Army has awarded a $237.9 million deal for Javelin production to Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Raytheon [RTX], which jointly manufacture the anti-tank missile, while top Pentagon acquisition official William LaPlante has said a deal to Raytheon for Stinger anti-aircraft missiles is expected by the end of May.
“You are right that we have not had an open production line for Stinger for some time. We do still have some Stinger missiles that we can provide but there’s an obsolete part that we’re going to have to figure out how to work around. Do we design around that or bring forward sort of a next-generation Stinger? And I think that will take a little more time,” Wormuth said in response to Blunt.
Last month, the Army released a new Request for Information notice for “Maneuver Short Range Air Defense Inc. 3” effort to find a replacement for its Stinger missile systems, detailing plans to begin developing and testing new capabilities next fiscal year before beginning production of 10,000 missiles in fiscal year 2027 (Defense Daily, April 11).